Eudoxus (c.390–c.340 BC)

Eudoxus of Cnidos was a Greek mathematician with wide-ranging philosophical and scientific interests. He was known in antiquity for his mathematical astronomy and his philosophical hedonism, and placed, if loosely, within the Pythagorean tradition. More recently, debate about the correspondence between mathematical models produced by astronomers and the physical motions of the astronomical bodies themselves has focused especially on Eudoxus, since he is generally regarded as the first to have used a mathematical model in astronomy.